Piers Akerman – Tuesday,April 09,2013 (4:50am)

THE death of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher serves to remind us what pygmies now strut the world political stage.

Baroness Thatcher, truly the “Iron Lady” died following a stroke last night at the age of 87.

Unlike Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Thatcher had no need to enter any gender war - she was an outstanding individual who made no excuses and did not seek special status because of her sex.

Under Thatcherism, millions of Britons were liberated from the dead-end future of creeping socialism.

She was as British Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron said, “a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton”.

Calling her death “sad news”, former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev said Baroness Thatcher was a “great politician” who would go down in history.

“Margaret Thatcher was a great politician and a bright individual. She will do down in our memory and in history,” the Nobel Peace Prize winner, who held frequent meetings with Baroness Thatcher at the end of the Cold War, told Interfax news agency.

“Thatcher was a politician whose words carried great weight. Our first meeting, in 1984, gave the start to relations that were at times difficult, not always smooth, but which were serious and responsible for us both.”

Thatcher and the late US President Ronald Reagan were committed to ending Communism and largely succeeded – but for China which is now giving nations like Australia an overdue lesson in capitalism.

An emotional former Polish president and Solidarity founder Lech Walesa said the staunchly anti-communist Baroness Thatcher was key in hastening the fall of the Iron Curtain.

“She was a great person. She did a great deal for the world, along with Ronald Reagan, pope John Paul II and Solidarity, she contributed to the demise of communism in Poland and central Europe,” Walesa said.

“I’m praying for her.”

European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso paid tribute to Baroness Thatcher’s “contributions” to the growth of the EU, despite her reservations about European integration.

Expressing his “deepest regrets” to the UK government, Barroso said she had been “a circumspect yet engaged player in the European Union” who “will be remembered for both her contributions to and her reserves about our common project”

Thatcher came late to the debate about the European Union and I can say that she initially underestimated the enormous influence the EU would have on British sovereignty.

I met her on several occasions while I working in the UK in the 1980s and notably she initially complained that a series of articles The Times newspaper had run on the effect the EU would have on Britain after 1992.

I was responsible for the series and was able to convince her that the newspaper was correct.

She summoned Lord Cockfield, her representative in Brussels for talks, and later admitted The Times view was, unfortunately, accurate. (The series was later edited into a short book: The “Times” Guide to 1992: Britain in a Europe Without Frontiers: a Comprehensive Handbook.)

She will be remembered by the Left for smashing the coal miners union – a long overdue reform.

She will also be remembered for taking Britain into the Falklands War and winning – ending the corrupt colonels’ reign of Argentina.

But she will be remembered primarily for giving Britons reason to stand tall and proud and believe in themselves again.

As Senior Conservative MP David Davis said: “Margaret Thatcher was the greatest of modern British prime ministers, and was central to the huge transformation of the whole world that took place after the fall of the Soviet Union.

“Millions of people in Britain and around the world owe her a debt of gratitude for their freedom and their quality of life, which was made possible by her courageous commitment to the principles of individual freedom and responsibility.”

Vale Margaret Thatcher, a great leader, the greatest British Prime Minister since Winston Churchill led the UK in WW2.

Tim Blair – Tuesday,April 09,2013 (3:25pm)

Tim Blair – Tuesday,April 09,2013 (2:47pm)

The most ignored things in Sydney are Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s dinky little bicycle path traffic lights. For all the notice anybody takes of them, they may as well be Italian speed limits. Or Labor policies.

Tim Blair – Tuesday,April 09,2013 (1:04pm)

Fairfax business journalist Paddy Manning has been sacked for writing an opinion piece fiercely critical of the publisher’s recently-announced restructure and its use of so-called “advertorials”.

The senior reporter was dismissed yesterday afternoon after writing an online piece for Crikey, in which he attacked the company’s restructure plans and the editorial practices at the Australian Financial Review.

Tim Blair – Tuesday,April 09,2013 (5:32am)

In previous decades, Australia’s national tax-funded broadcaster may have marked the death of a globally transformative figure by interrupting light entertainment programming for a news report. In 2013, however, the ABC’s Tony Jones asks the opinion of a book-promotingformer prostitute. Her response:

And me with no champagne!

This significant cultural indicator occurred at the 23rd minute of last night’s Q & A.

HMAS Melville, operating under the coordination of the Australian
Maritime Safety Authority’s Rescue Coordination Centre, has rendered
assistance to a suspected irregular entry vessel that sought assistance
east of Christmas Island last night.
Initial indications suggest there are 127 people on board.
HMAS Childers, operating under the coordination of the Australian
Maritime Safety Authority’s Rescue Coordination Centre, has separately
rendered assistance to a suspected irregular entry vessel that sought
assistance north of Ashmore Islands yesterday.
Initial indications suggest there are 72 people on board.

HMAS Melville, operating under the control of Border Protection Command,
intercepted a suspected irregular entry vessel north-west of Christmas
Island overnight.
Initial indications suggest there are 81 passengers and two crew on board.

Many in the Left claim Margaret Thatcher made Britain more savage. Their
celebrations over her death suggest where Britain’s real savages -
cultural and political - reside.
For instance, a former hooker-turned-writer on the ABC’s Q&A last night, hearing the news of Thatcher’s death, smirks:

And me without champagne...

The comment, thankfully, fell like a lead balloon, even with a Q&A audience.
But as I said last night, even the way host Tony Jones asked his question
overlooked one central fact that destroys his premise. Thatcher
actually won three elections, suggesting the public did not share the
savage hatred of her that the media class had and which Jones falsely
presumes was widely shared:

Elvis Costello once wrote a song saying
that he would stamp the dirt down on her grave, but I think time has
passed now and people have a slightly different view of Margaret
Thatcher. Do you think that’s true or not?

She’s carked it!!!!
All good union women and men, all progressives, all anti-war activists
are duty bound to celebrate this great occasion to mark the death of a
British Conservative responsible for destroying so many lives. From the
miners of Britain to the soldiers and civilians slaughtered in wars and
coups from Latin America to Ireland to Iraq, few people can claim to be
responsible for as much misery and hardship as this woman, who did it
all to increase the profits of the 1%.
So, what better way to respond than with a celebration! ... The night
will involve footage of the strikes and protests against Thatcher, music
from the period, quizzes, prizes and working-class refreshments of all
sorts!

With such people, I try to imagine a world run by their like. The
pictures which reoccur are of the French Terror, Stalin, Pol Pot and
Mao. Of people once described by Bertrand Russell:

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its
victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under
robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s
cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be
satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us
without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

UPDATE
On Melbourne ABC 774, host Red Symons marks the event by reading out Thatcher jokes.
UPDATE
Let’s hear more bracing sermons from the Left on the misogyny of conservatives:

Footsoldiers of an ideology responsible for most of the greatest slaughters in modern history:

UPDATE
One fool rings up ABC 774 to sing “Ding dong the witch is dead”, and then accuses Thatcher of having been “divisive”.
Tough question: is he a greater hypocrite than he is a barbarian?
UPDATE
Fairfax celebrates:

UPDATE
You sometimes forget how cruel and silly some children can be, and then
along comes the Melbourne University Students Union in full Lord of the
Flies mode to vote for this:

That Students’ Council recognise the horrific legacy of Margaret
Thatcher and her neoliberal policies that destroyed the lives of
millions, her violent crushing of the miners’ strike, her oppression of
the Irish and murder of Bobby Sands and other hunger strikes, her
unconditioned support for right-wing dictators like Pinochet and Suharto
and her support for apartheid in South Africa, among many other things
and celebrates her death unreservedly.
Students’ Council also commits to organising a screening of the Ken
Loach film ‘Which side are you on?’ to further celebrate this event.

Yes, I know they are just children. But do they know this, too?
When I find the names of the five students who voted for this
resolution, I’ll let you know. After all, chances are some may later
want your vote for Parliament, and it’s best you knew what they’re like.
I’ll also name the three who opposed this motion. People of character should be encouraged.

- Download speeds of between 25 and 100 megabits per second by the end of 2016 and 50 to 100 megabits per second by 2019.
- The rollout of the NBN under the Coalition will be complete by the end of 2019.
- Regions with substandard internet services will receive priority rollout.
- Basic broadband plans will always be more affordable under the
Coalition than under Labor. Projections show that prices will be $24
cheaper a month by 2021 than under Labor’s NBN projected prices.
- The Coalition’s NBN will cost tens of billions less to complete than Labor’s NBN.

Under the Coalition’s NBN all premises will have access to download
speeds 25mbps to 100mbps by the end of 2016. The minimum speed will rise
to 50mbps by the end of 2019 for 90 per cent of fixed line users…
By 2021, the projected retail cost of the average broadband plan under a
Coalition NBN would be $66 per month, compared to at least $90 per
month with Labor’s NBN…
Labor’s NBN will cost more than $90 billion to complete. Our plan will cost $29.5 billion…
Under Kevin Rudd, Labor promised fast broadband for all Australians by
2013 for a cost of $4.7 billion. After more than 5 years in Government,
only 10,400 users have signed up to the Labor’s fibre network despite
$7.5 billion in cash injections to the NBN by June – already almost
double the money Kevin Rudd said was needed to complete the entire NBN.
Based on the NBN’s own targets – which they have consistently failed to
meet – the rollout will not be finished until 2021. On its current
pace, the rollout will take years longer.
Labor now claims its NBN will cost $37 billion but latest estimates and
available data indicate this projection is completely misleading. The
real cost of Labor’s NBN is likely to be more than $90 billion by 2021.

..OPPOSITION communications spokesman Malcolm
Turnbull has conceded his broadband plan will offer slower speeds than
Labor’s, but says unlike the government’s his is capable of being built.
The Coalition’s fibre-to-the-node plan has been costed at $29.5 billion, including $20.4 billion in capital expenditure.
This compares with the $44.1bn in peak funding needed for Labor’s
$37.4bn National Broadband Network, which provides fibre to the home.
Mr Turnbull said the cheaper price tag came with a compromise in terms
of speed, but the fibre-to-the-node network would be fast enough for all
but the most demanding users…
“...our goal is to ensure that all Australians have access to at least
25 megabytes per second… And of course while most Australians would have
access to considerably higher speeds than that, 25 megs will enable
everybody in residential situations to do everything they want to do or
need to do in terms of applications and services, and is six times
faster than the average speed people are getting now.”
Labor is promising 100 megabytes per second for users of its fire-to-the-home network.

The Coalition steps up
the policy roll-out, developing a mandate for winding back union power
but giving the chance for Labor to attack:

The
Coalition is considering giving employers the power to unilaterally
determine workplace agreements for major new projects if negotiations
with unions fail under a policy designed to partially reverse what business believes is a pro-union shift in the industrial relations system…
Under the Coalition policy, employees would be required to nominate a
union as their representative before the union could be involved in
workplace bargaining on their behalf, a change designed to make it
harder for unions to approach non-unionised workplaces.
The Coalition’s favoured approach for new, or greenfields, projects is
to allow employers in effect to make agreements with themselves if they
have reached a stalemate with unions. They would have to be approved by
the Fair Work Commission, which would ensure the wages were similar to
equivalent projects and the deals fulfilled the requirements of the Fair
Work Act.
The draft policy is said to remove restrictions on people under 18
working short shifts. Some awards require young people to be employed
for a minimum of three hours a shift.

Labor’s bleeding sore keeps bleeding - and will keep doing so until the election:

FORMER Health Services Union boss Michael Williamson faces two new charges over alleged corruption in the union’s NSW branch.
Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court heard today from Mr Williamson’s
lawyer Vivian Evans that police would bring further charges against her
client, and the matter was adjourned until June 18.
A NSW police spokesman said later that Mr Williamson, 59, had been
charged with two additional alleged offences: cheating or defrauding as a
director, and money laundering…
The new charges bring to 50 the total levelled against the former Labor
powerbroker and ALP national president. Last year Mr Williamson was
served with two tranches of charges which included attempting to get
others to impede a police investigation, and dishonestly dealing with
$600,000 of union funds.

Even author Ben Cubby, a fervent warmist, seems unconvinced by his own story:

But that figure comes with caveats, because most existing wine
districts, such as the Hunter Valley in NSW and Western Australia’s
Margaret River, should be able to adapt their farming practices to cope
with the change.

But any such scare is meat and drink drink drink to professional alarmists:

UPDATE
But while the wine still flows in first class, the great jamboree continues:

TAXPAYERS
forked out nearly $900,000 to send Julia Gillard and her 52-strong
contingent to last year’s climate change summit in Brazil despite the
global talkfest being labelled an ‘’epic’’ failure.
In one of the most expensive delegations ever to travel overseas, the
cost of airfares soared to $240,951 while accommodation in some of Rio
de Janeiro’s better hotels came to $220,000. Labor has spent millions of
dollars attending climate change summits with the ill-fated Copenhagen
meeting in December 2009 costing $1.5 million while a 38-member
delegation to Mexico in 2011 cost $360,000.

Certainly, Mrs Thatcher was the first world leader to voice alarm over
global warming, back in 1988, With her scientific background, she had
fallen under the spell of Sir Crispin Tickell, then our man at the UN.
In the 1970s, he had written a book warning that the world was cooling,
but he had since become an ardent convert to the belief that it was
warming…
She found equally persuasive the views of a third prominent convert to
the cause, Dr John Houghton, then head of the UK Met Office. She backed
him in the setting up of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) in 1988…
It is not widely appreciated, however, that there was a dramatic twist
to her story. In 2003, towards the end of her last book, Statecraft, in a
passage headed “Hot Air and Global Warming”, she issued what amounts to
an almost complete recantation of her earlier views.
She voiced precisely the fundamental doubts about the warming scare that
have since become familiar to us. Pouring scorn on the “doomsters”, she
questioned the main scientific assumptions used to drive the scare,
from the conviction that the chief force shaping world climate is CO2,
rather than natural factors such as solar activity, to exaggerated
claims about rising sea levels. She mocked Al Gore and the futility of
“costly and economically damaging” schemes to reduce CO2 emissions. She
cited the 2.5C rise in temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period as
having had almost entirely beneficial effects. She pointed out that the
dangers of a world getting colder are far worse than those of a
CO2-enriched world growing warmer. She recognised how distortions of the
science had been used to mask an anti-capitalist, Left-wing political
agenda which posed a serious threat to the progress and prosperity of
mankind.
In other words, long before it became fashionable, Lady Thatcher was
converted to the view of those who, on both scientific and political
grounds, are profoundly sceptical of the climate change ideology.

Will Bongiorno correct his statement? Will he again impress on us Thatcher’s scientific credentials?
UPDATE
Another Leftist journalist urges us to heed the scientifically-trained Thatcher, not realising we only wish he would:

MICHAEL Smith: Were you wrong or right there? What’s the go?
Conroy: I had confused two different aspects in the somewhat robust
discussion we were having and the operating expenses and the operating
revenue are separate.
Smith: You got it wrong by about . . .
Conroy: I’m saying you were right.
Smith: Yeah, I understand that. But jeez it worries me mate, with great respect to you, you were out by about $11 billion.

And on the ABC’s AM, yesterday:

STEPHEN Conroy: The corporate plan, audited by the Auditor-General, is
produced each year, and what you’re seeing in that corporate plan is
$37.4 billion is the cost of building the NBN not, as today the
Coalition is claiming, $90bn.
I mean, the Coalition are a fact-free zone. They don’t have any facts to
support these claims. They rely on misleading statistics and misleading
data to try and make these scare campaigns.

Sky News Agenda, yesterday:

STEPHEN Conroy: The point that I’ve been making, and I was making this
morning, though I described it inaccurately this morning, was this is
the annual report of the NBN Co. It is audited by the Auditor-General of
Australia. The figures here are audited by the Auditor-General of
Australia. This is the annual report.
Host, David Speers: You said the Auditor-General had audited the corporate plan.
Conroy: I meant the annual report. This is the annual report of the NBN. This is the annual report . . .
Speers: Not the corporate plan.
Conroy: No, I meant to say the annual report. This is the annual report
that details expenses, it details income. So you can’t make numbers up.
You can’t pretend numbers to the Auditor-General of Australia. This is
the annual report.
Speers: But the Auditor-General is not looking at the assumptions and numbers and underlying modelling behind the annual report.
Conroy: No, but if we say we’ve signed a contract for X, it has to be
the right number. You can’t pretend that the cost is $37 billion if the
cost is $90 billion. The Auditor-General might notice.
Speers: So it can’t go more than $37.4 billion?
Conroy: No, we’re saying these are the signed contracts.

EMMA ALBERICI: Can you tell us how many homes are currently paying a subscription once a month and using the NBN?
STEPHEN CONROY: It’s roughly around 50,000 Australians are using the NBN
at the moment and it’s growing each week. That’s 50,000, including
satellite, fixed wireless and fibre.
EMMA ALBERICI: So what are the chances then that 600,000 premises will be signed up by June of this year?
STEPHEN CONROY: Well we’ve said consistently that we’ve had some ramp-up
mobilisation issues for the last few months… We’re now going to reach
about 220,000.

But questioning the Communications Minister like this is naughty of the media:

EMMA ALBERICI: Can I take you back to December, 2010 when you held a joint press conference with the Prime Minister ... ?
STEPHEN CONROY: Well you can waste the time of - you can waste the time of Lateline. We have ...
EMMA ALBERICI: I just want a little bit of clarification… So are you now
saying that it’s construction delays that are responsible for the quite
enormous shortfall?
STEPHEN CONROY: Well now you sound like Malcolm Turnbull, Emma.

He’s warned you once already, Emma:

EMMA ALBERICI: Yep. So, then - let me say this then: back in 2010 - I hate to keep taking you back there ...
STEPHEN CONROY: As I say, Malcolm Turnbull goes there all the time.
EMMA ALBERICI: Well, this was the corporate plan that said that by June of this year, you would have 1.7 million ...
STEPHEN CONROY: And it was superseded in August last year.
EMMA ALBERICI: That 1.7 million premises would have access to the NBN.
STEPHEN CONROY: Well that was superseded because we started nine months later…
EMMA ALBERICI: OK, so tell us what is the figure now?
STEPHEN CONROY: So, the number of premises passed will be around 240,000
I think is the number that - about 220,000, sorry; it’s down from
340,000.

Not surprised, with that fumbling, that Conroy hates questioning. So can
he let go of that dream of putting the media under state control?

EMMA ALBERICI: Now this morning you said on ABC Radio that the
Auditor-General had audited your figures. You’ve since recounted that.
Who is auditing the Government’s figures - the NBN figures?
STEPHEN CONROY: No, this is the annual report. I meant to say annual
report this morning.... You can’t just make up numbers and put it in
this report. You can’t just fantasise like Malcolm Turnbull did with the
Daily Telegraph this morning. I mean, let’s be clear: today’s Daily
Telegraph is back to the bad old days. It’s back to a campaign against
the NBN Co, a campaign against the Government… This is the Daily
Telegraph back to the bad old days…
EMMA ALBERICI: And in fact that was part of the reason why you and your government suggested media reform was urgently required.
STEPHEN CONROY: No, that’s not correct.
EMMA ALBERICI: Well certainly some of the examples given to the
Finkelstein inquiry surrounded claims about the NBN that had featured in
the News Limited press.
STEPHEN CONROY: Well they weren’t claims made by me. ... but, they’re back to the bad old days.
EMMA ALBERICI: Let me ask you this: you’ve said the media reforms - the
media reforms, as you put them to the Parliament, are essentially dead
and buried. What will you take to the election as far as your new policy
on media reform?
STEPHEN CONROY: Well clearly the old policy, unfortunately, wasn’t able
to pass the Parliament. We haven’t had a chance yet to digest what we
want to propose ... so we’ll work through over the next month or two
what we will consider taking forward to the election, but what we said
is that is dead, that is no longer our policy…
EMMA ALBERICI: Will Labor take a new media policy to the election?
STEPHEN CONROY: We’ll take a policy…

Sports
scientist Stephen Dank says he never administered a single product or
substance to any athlete without the prior consent of ASADA or WADA…
Dank’s tenure at Cronulla, Manly and Essendon has come under particular
scrutiny, and those clubs were named in the Australian Crime
Commission’s report into doping and the integrity of sport…
‘’Before I’ve done anything in any forum, we have always had
conversations with WADA [the World Anti-Doping Agency] or ASADA
[Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority] - or in some cases both,’’
Dank told Fairfax
‘’...Nothing was ever used without asking them first and, in some cases, both parties were asked.....’’
ASADA is in the process of interviewing 31 NRL players of interest as
part of their investigations. Up to 14 Cronulla players are expected to
be involved in the process, which is expected to take six weeks…
As yet, no Cronulla players have been interviewed by ASADA amid fears
the investigation could overshadow the Origin series and potentially
even the NRL play-offs.

Really? That’s the excuse now? First the great smear, and months later still no evidence to back it up.

Good heavens. Even now, Gillard is playing the gender card that Thatcher never did - other than in jest.
UPDATE
Reader Gab notes this passage from Gender Forum:

Her daughter Carol writes in 2008 about the relation between her mother
and the feminist movement in the early 1970s, when Margaret was Minister
of Education in the Heath Cabinet.

Feminists didn’t think she was doing enough for their cause. This was
the era of “Women’s Lib” but my mother was a stratosphere away from the
bra-burning demonstrations of the time. On the contrary, she felt the
movement had done very little for her. She was a hard-working example
of female success from relatively lowly beginnings who had achieved
cabinet rank by pragmatically getting on with the task in hand rather
than by manning barricades and wasting precious time protesting.[/url] (Carol Thatcher 2008, 47,48)

Thatcher needed to hold her own in a world where female politicians were
in danger of not being taken seriously. The Henigs comment on how a
British female member of parliament needed to behave in the 1960s as
follows:

To be successful, and to make their mark in such a male-dominated
environment, women had to compete with men on their terms and be tough.”
(Henig and Henig 19)

Being tough as a female politician meant, among other things, to avoid
‘women’s issues’, such as health, social work and legislative
emancipation. In the course of her political career, Thatcher always
sought to concentrate on ‘men’s issues’ such as finance and economy. She
had already specialised in fiscal law when studying for her second
degree. Her ambition in the 1960s was to become the first female
Chancellor of the Exchequer (Thatcher 1996, 95). But her fear of being
undervalued as a woman surfaces in a remark she made when taking office
as Prime Minister: “I don’t think of myself as the first woman Prime
Minister.” (Quoted in Pilcher 495)

Former attorney-general Nicola Roxon has lashed out at ‘’misogyny’’
within Labor ranks, after the release of an anonymous dirt sheet
attacking a candidate in the preselection battle for the safe seat of
Gellibrand.
A dirt sheet on candidate Katie Hall, who is being backed by Ms Roxon,
was circulated over the weekend ahead of local member votes on Sunday
and Monday.
The dirt sheet, or ‘’shit sheet’’ as Labor members call it, made several
allegations about Ms Hall, who is a former staffer of Ms Roxon,
including reference to Ms Hall’s time at the Health Services Union,
which was mentioned in the Fair Work Australia report into the
beleaguered union…
Ms Roxon wrote to local members saying ... ‘’It is frustrating that
every time a capable woman puts up her hand to run for office, she has
to deal with false allegations about her sexual history. We might expect
this misogyny and sexism from our Liberal opponents, but surely it has
no place within modern Labor?’’ ...

A great leader is dead. Margaret Thatcher was not merely Britain’s first
female Prime Minister. She was one of its greatest, overshadowed only
by Winston Churchill among her nation’s Prime Ministers in the 20th
Century.
Her great achievement was to smash the sclerotic and suffocating state
socialism that had made Britain weak and contemptible, and in doing so
she made her country more a nation of opportunity.
Thatcher left Britain richer, stronger and more confident than it had
been since the World War II. She also fought the great battles for
freedom for other peoples, combining with Ronald Reagan to help destroy
communism in East Europe.
A giant, right on the big arguments and courageous in prosecuting them:

The centrepiece of her first administration was the reform of trades
unions and the restructuring of the British economy. The top rate of tax
was soon cut to 60 per cent from 83 per cent, and a punitive rate of 98
per cent on unearned income was brought down to the standard tax rates…
The proof that the Trades Unions were tamed was seen not merely in
better industrial relations and improved performance of the economy, but
also in the way the once-mighty National Union of Mineworkers, led by
Arthur Scargill, was defeated in a year-long strike in 1984-85. With
that dragon finally slain, Mrs Thatcher could now unpick what she
considered one of the most wasteful legacies of state socialism, the
nationalised industries. A succession of privatisations — of gas,
electricity, coal, telecommunications and airlines — created a nation of
shareholders and raised a fortune for the Treasury, enabling taxes to
be cut at the top rate to 40 pence in the £ in 1988. A similar drive to
spread prosperity as widely as possible was seen in the sale of council
houses to their owners. By the end of the second Thatcher term in 1987
the British economy had been transformed, by these and by other
important deregulatory measures, into one of the strongest in the
western world…
By the time Mrs Thatcher won her third mandate in June 1987 she was a
world statesman, a go-between for her old friend Ronald Reagan with her
new friend Mikhail Gorbachev, and with an eye to winning the Cold War.
The part she played in urging Gorbachev into reforms, and into a more
moderate attitude towards satellite states in the Soviet bloc, led to
the fall of the Berlin wall in November 1989 and the collapse, almost
like a house of cards, of the other Soviet bloc regimes over the next
two years.

When the going got tough, the Iron Lady got going:

What made her a great leader was a firm grasp of the values informing her politics:

Those were her values at the start, and she was true to them to the end:

Thatcher stood against the great European mirage, too, such a threat to democracy:

The whole of the academic establishment - including some luminaries of
today - stood against the government. The 364 included Third-Way guru
Anthony Giddens; the current Governor of the Bank of England; Monetary
Policy Committee member Stephen Nickell; and former and future Nobel
Prize winners…
In many walks of life, we listen to experts with respect. Three hundred
and sixty-four experts would normally command a lot of respect…
On the face of it, they were wrong. The economic recovery that the 364
said would not happen began more or less as soon as the letter appeared.
Unemployment continued to rise, but this was in the face of a highly
regulated and unionised labour market and wholesale industrial
restructuring. A long-term fall in the rate of unemployment had to wait
until labour market and trade union reforms became embedded some years
later.
The 364 were wrong because they believed the Keynesian consensus of the
time. Indeed, they taught it to nearly every undergraduate in the
country. The textbooks used by nearly all British undergraduates did not
pay any attention whatsoever to alternatives. It was as if economic
theory began and ended with the naïve Keynesianism of Keynes’s immediate
followers.

I think Tony Abbott will in many ways face the same challenges, not least the groupthink of the elites.
UPDATE
The Sydney Morning Herald even now can’t believe Thatcher was
right, blaming her for the “winter of discontent” actually created (as
reader Jono notes) by the previous Labor Government of Jim Callaghan:

From 1979 to 1990 she led the country through a turbulent decade of
change … She deregulated the financial sector, privatised many
state-owned companies, and took on the then-powerful trade unions.
The resulting ‘winter of discontent’ – a spike in unemployment accompanied by protests and inner-city riots - tested her early leadership …

UPDATE
Few leaders suffered such vicious abuse, and the more barbaric elements
of the Left aren’t going to let up even now. Reader Turtle notes one
contribution on the ABC:

And on Q&A; the reaction, by a celebrity ex prostitute called Brooke Magnanti: “And me without champagne “. No class. Disgusting.

You’d think a woman who’s sold her body could at least afford to rent a brain.
Even the way host Tony Jones asked his question
overlooked one central fact that destroys his premise. Thatcher
actually won three elections, suggesting the public did not share the
savage hatred of her that the media class had and which Jones presumes
was widely shared:

Elvis Costello once wrote a song saying
that he would stamp the dirt down on her grave, but I think time has
passed now and people have a slightly different view of Margaret
Thatcher. Do you think that’s true or not?

UPDATE
How Labor - and the Liberals before that - got us to this point:
February 2011:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the Minister for Innovation Kim Carr
today welcomed the launch of the Australian-made Holden Cruze at the
company’s Elizabeth Plant in South Australia.
The Gillard Government is very proud to have supported the production of
this low emission car through a $149 million investment from the
Government’s New Car Plan for a Greener Future.

Let us look at the Holden Ltd Enterprise
Agreement. It was made with six unions… Between 1997 and 2010 the
company gave pay increases of 63.33 per cent, a median increase of 4.87
per cent a year, hardly appropriate for a struggling business relying on
government support… Yet the agreement prohibits the company from
increasing, decreasing or rearranging the workforce without union
approval… Holden cannot choose the labour hire company; they can only
use a business selected by the unions.

GM Holden has agreed to an extraordinary wage deal that will lift
the income of 4000 employees by up to 22 per cent by 2014, despite the
carmaker seeking a taxpayer-funded assistance package from the Gillard
government. In a deal hailed by union leaders as “spectacular”, workers
will receive a “guaranteed” 18.3 per cent increase over the next three
years, with some workers to receive up to 22.3 per cent… The
Australian has obtained full details of the agreement, which the union
said contained no productivity trade-offs…

The federal government has announced $275 million to keep Holden in
Australia, as Manufacturing Minister Greg Combet warned that without
government support, the car manufacturer would likely shut down in
Australia.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the investment - shared by the
South Australian and Victorian governments -today in a bid to keep the
car manufacturer in the country until at least 2022.

Cruze sales were down some 40.0 per cent to just 1875 units – the small
car’s worst month since September 2009, 18 months before local
production commenced – while the small-car segment overall rose 3.3 per
cent.

Figures released by Holden show it received $2.17 billion in state and
federal government assistance over the past 12 years, compared to $1.1
billion for Ford and $1.2 billion for Toyota, News Limited can reveal.
This equates to Holden receiving an average of $180 million a year
compared to Toyota taking $95.8 million a year and Ford getting $87.8
million a year.

Fanatics lack a sense of humor, which may explain a blindness to irony. Take the Greens:

ACT Greens campaign manager Ellen Sandell..., who is managing former
GetUp! chief Simon Sheikh’s bid for the Senate, was looking to hire
staff.
The email sent to campaign operatives around the world looking for
“people to come to Australia and help out on the campaign” cast a wide
net. “In particular,” Sandell wrote, “we need a data manager to manage
our Nation Builder system (manage our volunteer, donor and voter contact
data), as well as help with website and emails."…
...aside from the fact that the Greens were not looking for an
Australian to perform the role, they did not intend to pay somebody to
do it…
But at the same time they are looking for foreigners to be employed for
free, they have been trying to win support for a bill to compel
employers “to advertise locally before they bring in overseas workers,”
as deputy leader Adam Bandt puts it.
...the advertisement for a foreign worker makes a mockery of the
comments of Greens leader Christine Milne. “If the Prime Minister was
serious about protecting local jobs,” the senator said last month, it
should “get behind the Greens legislation to advertise jobs locally
first.”

ACT Greens Senate candidate Simon Sheikh today denied seeking cut price
foreign campaign workers, but The Australian can reveal the letter in
which the appeal was made.
Mr Sheikh, the former head of the GetUp! activist group, claimed on
Twitter today that a story about the letter was wrong and attacked the
journalist who wrote it, The Australian’s Troy Bramston.
“@TroyBramston was informed that his story was incorrect before it went
to print. Chose to ignore. Sloppy work from an ex ALP staffer,” he said.

Just saw an episode of Masterchef USA from Sydney. It was an episode where the contestants were divided into two teams and served at a truck stop the gourmet cuisine of .. Hamburger .. ed

===

A little boy asked his mother, "Why are you crying?" "Because I'm a woman," she told him.

"I don't understand," he said. His Mom just hugged him and said, "And you never will."

Later the little boy asked his father, "Why does mother seem to cry for no reason?""All women cry for no reason," was all his dad could say.

The little boy grew up and became a man, still wondering why women cry.

Finally he put in a call to God. When God got on the phone, he asked,

"God, why do women cry so easily?"

God said, "When I made the woman she had to be special.

I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the world, yet gentle enough to give comfort.

I gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth and the rejection that many times comes from her children.

I gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going when everyone else gives up, and take care of her family through sickness and fatigue without complaining.

I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all circumstances, even when her child has hurt her very badly.

I gave her strength to carry her husband through his faults and fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart.

I gave her wisdom to know that a good husband never hurts his wife, but sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside him And finally, I gave her a tear to shed. This is hers exclusively to use whenever it is needed."

"You see my son," said God, "the beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair.

The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart theplace where love resides."I thought it was because she liked that toy. And I broke it. - ed
===CONROY’S NBN A DRUNKEN THOUGHT BUBBLE Larry Pickering

When you think of something terrific to do when you’re pissed, don’t pretend it’s just as terrific when you’re sober.

In 2008, Kevin Rudd and Stephen Conroy were enjoying a few after dinner wines in Qantas first class when Conroy came up with a crazy NBN idea. He drew a few diagrams on the back of an envelope. Kev squinted at it and told Conroy to go ahead. Kev has since given up drinking on Qantas.

It would prove to be a very expensive absurdity, even for an ex Pom union buffoon like Conroy.

His idea was simply this: Use the half-century old technology of glass fibre to deliver fast broadband to every house in Australia and then flog the system off to some rich bastard.

The problem was that digging trenches to every house in Oz sounded easy with a belly-full of red.

In reality it’s rapidly proving to be a nightmare and union buffoons with single digit IQs are averse to admitting they were pissed at the time.

So, Aunty Dot and Uncle Arthur in Arden Street North Melbourne will have the same access to the same high-speed broadband as the iconic Children’s Hospital over the road.

The trouble is that Uncle Arthur can’t figure out how email works yet and Aunty Dot would kill him if he forked out $7,000 for anything.

Perhaps we should put ninety five billion in numbers so Conroy can understand the extent of his folly: $95,000,000,000,000.00.

Now that’s just a bunch of noughts to Conroy but to us it’s our grandchildren’s taxing interest payments.

When you see Conroy, Gillard and Independents all cheering and pressing a big orange NBN button with lights flashing everywhere and nothing connected to bloody anything, then you know you are in the process of being conned.

And those who promised to prop up Gillard are naturally first cabs off the rank.

Take-up rates in the first part of Australia to get the NBN is flatlining, with just over 100 extra “customers” signing up over the past year.

The whole drunken thought bubble of a project is going backwards at terabyte speed.

Of the very first Tasmanian towns to get the NBN (Smithton, Scottsdale and Midway Point) 702 premises had signed up out of a possible 3,987 that were passed by the network.

The fact is that hard glass to the node allows those who want, or need, such high-speed broadband to access it. But to connect hard glass to every single house where it may not be needed or wanted is lunacy only Labor is capable of.

Anyway if you think that Conroy’s “glass fibre to the premises” won’t be obsolete by his completion date of 2021 (more likely 2051) then you better have a quick look at this:

It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.

He did this because he said in words to this effect:"Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened".

Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet.. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.

It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This is in memory of the, six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians, and 1,900 Catholic priests Who were 'murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on and humiliated' while many in the world looked the other way!

Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.
===

Two years ago we came to Government inheriting an administration in a mess and with an agenda for real change. Whilst we have faced challenges I am pleased with what we have achieved: -

The first Budget to come in on budget in seventeen years;

The second lowest unemployment rate of all the Australian states and almost 100,000 new jobs;

A focus on the frontline with nearly 4,000 additional teachers, nurses and police officers; and

A $61.8 billion infrastructure agenda that includes the South West Rail Link, North West Rail Link and Pacific Highway upgrade.

There is still more to be done and I need your help to ensure we can continue delivering major reforms, making NSW Number One Again. To ensure that our great vision for New South Wales can continue, we need your support to keep a Liberal led Government. The next State election is less than 2 years away and we need to start planning for our campaign now.

Become a monthly Liberal Party donor and help us take the fight up to the Labor Party and their Union backers.

Your donations will assist the Liberal Party to run grassroots campaigns in must win seats and combat the targeted activities of special interest groups such as Get Up who spend millions on issues based campaigns against the Coalition.

Please click on the link, http://www.nsw.liberal.org.au/state_donation and support the Liberal Party in the on-going effort to keep the momentum moving forward and to turn New South Wales towards greater growth and prosperity.

Featured Video

Michelle's Top Tweets

And ... Our Hate Tweet of the Day

Living in the United States, we all have the freedoms to provide the education we feel is best for our children. Every family is different; every child is different and our educational priorities are all different. That is why finding the best education arrangement for your child is a freedom that we all hold very dear.

But in some countries, there are no education choices. You attend the schools your government tells you to, and if you don't you may face serious fines, police intimidation or worse. Take the Romeike family for instance. They are German citizens who fled to the United States to avoid punishment from German authorities because they were homeschooling their children.

They were granted asylum by an immigration judge in Tennessee and now Attorney General Eric Holder is disputing the case suggesting Germany's intolerance to homeschooling doesn't violate the Romeike's rights. It's important to realize this is more than about one family - it could affect homeschooling families in our own country. This is about a parent's right to determine what's best for their children.

A petition on the White House website was set up by the Home School Legal Defense Association urging the Obama Administration to grant permanent legal status to the Romeike family. Please sign this petition now to show your support for this family to find the right educational choices for their family. They need 100,000 signatures by April 18 for the White House to take action, and as of Monday morning they had about 85,000 signatures.

You'll have to set up an account on the White House website to sign the petition. It is a short form and you do NOT have to provide your address.

Thanks for joining this important fight,

Rick Santorum

Patriot Voices Radio

Patriot Voices Radio will air again on Tuesday. If you haven't tuned it yet, you should! It's a great way to stay up to date on what Patriot Voices is doing! Listen live on our website tomorrow at noon ET or on your phone by calling 347.857.3462.

And we'd love to hear from you! Call our Radio Shout-Out Line at 512.827.0033 and tell us about your American dream and what you're doing to make it happen. We just might play your message during the show!

Help Pick our American Dream Instagram Contest Winners

Last week, we issued this challenge on Instagram: Tell us in pictures about your American dream!

The end of day comes, the sun sets and the tornadic storm starts to die… This cloud mass had previously put down three tornados and was now dying, or rather transforming into a lightning producing machine, dropping 1-1/4" hail by the truckload. Here you see it sucking in a band of storm clouds in to get more power so that it could last the night. — in Boise City, OK.
===Outside Ben Thanh markets - Such an awesome photographer you are Mrs @jnguyen04 hehe! #Vietnam #Overwhelmed #Beautiful #Markets #Exploring #Fun #People
===
===
===
===I don't get leftist humour .. Wilcox is left .. but how is this, a comic about Penny Wong, funny? - ed
===
===
===How awesome is this bag?! Buy in Target and here:http://shop.target.com.au/p/hello-kitty-black-fashion-bag/P51915124
===Specialists from the Department of Hand Surgery Hospital in Rehovot saved from complete amputation the fingers of a young man. Three fingers of his hand were crushed by a machine and presented with 3rd degree burns. A month after having his fingers sewn into his abdomen to provide them with ample blood supply, the fingers have been restored, and have regained movement almost completely.

((sent to us by our great colleague Dr Nima IR- With respect))
===
===
==="Margaret Thatcher arrested the decline of Britain and gave the British people renewed confidence. She ensured the British people no longer simply dwelt on the glories of the past but could enjoy a strong and prosperous future." Tony Abbotthttp://lbr.al/7j8t
===
===

Um Jaafar, a woman fighter in the Free Syrian Army, sits with her husband Abu Jaafar, a Sawt al-Haq (Voice of Rights) battalion commander, and her daughter Faten at their home in Aleppo February 12, 2013. Um Jaafar was a women's hairdresser before the revolution and after being trained by her husband, she is now a member of a Sawt al-Haq battalion on the frontline of Aleppo's Sheikh Saeed neighbourhood. REUTERS/Muzaffar Salman (SYRIA - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST) - RTR3DOSC REUTERS<... When will the world ever learn from their mistakes ?

When will Arabs stop killing Arabs and stop blaming liberal and democratic society for their own savage demise ?>
===
4 her
===

Where else will one find a leader who could close down coal mines and still be despised by the left? - ed

to my left wing pals celebrating the death of lady thatcher: she voted for gay rights and legal abortion, brought inflation down from 18% to 8%, substantially raised employment (contrary to popular song...) and took a leading role in ending the cold war liberating millions from authoritarian rule in eastern europe. she also co-invented soft serve ice cream which is delicious. it's not all peaches and sunshine but if all you know about her is what you learned from elvis costello and billy bragg you may not have the full picture of the woman whose grave you're dancing on.

===History will enshrine Margaret Thatcher as a transformational leader who helped defeat communism, promote freedom, and bring hope to the oppressed. Her penetrating words and compelling vision will last for generations. - Mitt Romney
===For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. — Romans 8:38-39
===RIP Baroness Thatcher

"My policies are based not on some economics theory, but on things I and millions like me were brought up with: an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, live within your means, put by a nest egg for a rainy day, pay your bills on time, support the police." Thatcher, September 1981
===“Laura and I are saddened by the death of Baroness Margaret Thatcher. She was an inspirational leader who stood on principle and guided her nation with confidence and clarity. Prime Minister Thatcher is a great example of strength and character, and a great ally who strengthened the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States. Laura and I join the people of Great Britain in remembering the life and leadership of this strong woman and friend.” George W Bush
===We’re deeply saddened at the loss of Margaret Thatcher. While the Iron Lady is sadly gone, her iron will, her unfailing trust in what is right and just, and her lessons to all of us will live on forever. She was a trailblazer like no other. We lost an icon, but her legacy, as solid as iron, will live on in perpetuity.

"We have never invested as much in PUBLIC EDUCATION as we should have, because we've always had a kind of a private notion of children.

Your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven't had a very COLLECTIVE notion of these are OUR children. So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to our families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.

Once it's everybody's responsibIlity and not just the households... then we start making better INVESTMENTS."

-Melissa Harris Perry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=N3qtpdSQox0
===We held a Community Forum on Ageing policy today in Mortdale with Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells. It was a good discussion about this important and complex policy area. The Senator is the Coalition's Shadow Minister and talked about our plans for reform if we are elected in September.
===
===ראש הממשלה השתתף בטקס ''לכל איש יש שם'' שנערך בכנסת. בטקס המרגש, הקריא רה''מ את שמות משפחתו של שמואל בן ארצי ז''ל, אביה של רעיית רה''מ הגברת שרה נתניהו, שנספתה כולה בשואה:

The prime minister participated in the "every person has a name" ceremony that took place at the Knesset. In the moving ceremony, the prime minister recited the names of the family of the late Shmuel ben Artzi, father of Ms. Sarah Netanyahu the prime minister's spouse that perished entirely during the holocaust. May their memory be blessed
===
===Gabby Giffords falsely implies that her shooter evaded a background check ==>http://twitchy.com/2013/04/07/gabby-giffords-falsely-implies-that-her-shooter-evaded-a-background-check/
===Check out today's devotional to find out how Jesus alone is the perfect atonement for your sins, and that He is the only sacrifice that can satisfy God! Be blessed!http://bit.ly/10TlLCk
===What is uppermost in God's heart for His people? In this video excerpt, catch a glimpse of Christ's immeasurable mercy and grace toward His people. Find yourself running to Jesus, your Rock, to receive all that you need from Him!http://josephprince.com/
===Trust God’s timing in your life. He makes all things beautiful in His time (Eccl 3:11).
===Claim your victory by proclaiming Jesus' death when you partake of the Lord’s Supper! Check out today's devotional and be blessed! http://bit.ly/10Tjjfa
===With long life I will satisfy him, and show him My salvation.—Ps 91:16

God's heart is never for you to die young, nor for you to live a long, but miserable life.

In Ps 91:16, He promises you that with long life He will satisfy you, and show you His salvation. This means that God promises you not just long life, but also a satisfying one full of His goodness, wholeness and peace!

In the verse, the word “salvation” is the Hebrew word Yeshua, the name of Jesus. God will satisfy you with a long life that is full of Jesus! Expect a long, full life where you walk in all the blessings that you have in Christ—health, wholeness, provision and contentment!http://josephprince.com/
===Beloved, rest in your righteous identity in Christ and release God’s awesome, mighty power to reign in life!

Click below to watch a short clip of this powerful message. Be sure to click 'Like' and share this with your friends! Amen!http://bit.ly/10DJh2P
===We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in His love… (1Jn 4:16, NLT).
===For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.—2Cor 8:9

The apostle Paul tells us in 2Cor 8:9 that for our sakes Jesus became poor so that we through His poverty might be made rich. At the cross, Jesus took on all our sin and poverty. He was humiliated, spat upon and stripped naked. The Roman soldiers even gambled for His clothes.

The One who fed more than 5,000 people, gave fishermen a net-breaking, boat-sinking load of fish, and who placed the gold, diamonds and rubies in the earth, took your place of poverty at the cross, just so that you can take His place of abundance. A divine exchange occurred at Calvary—your sin for His righteousness and your poverty for His provision.

My friend, Jesus is the reason you can be the head and not the tail, above only and not beneath. He is the reason you can be blessed to be a blessing. Put your trust in His presence in your life and what His finished work has accomplished for you!

This post is from today’s Meditate & Believe Right devotional. Click on the link to receive this complimentary series of inspiring devotionals in your mailbox each day!http://josephprince.com/meditate/
===

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About Me

I have an m-audio mobile pre amp fed by the audiotechnica 2041sp condensor mic pack. Prior to 15/4/06, I'd used a Shure sm-58 that required a nuclear blast to register a sound or the internal mic of my aged imac, which has a penchance to recording my breathing. I also used a Griffin itrip, until the community convinced me it was not hiding my talent as well as the other mics.

I am a Writer and an occasional Math Teacher (Sir, what's the occasion?). I like to sing, having no instrumental talent (cannot even clap in time, and yes, I'm aware singing badly IS obnoxious).

I have performed the finale to Les Miserables before an audience of 500. I have also sung before a similar audience (students, parents) renditions of 'I Will' (Beatles), 'Mr Cairo' (Jon Vangelis) and 'I am Australian' (Seekers). Now I seek another profession because the audience hates me ..